Sat, Mar 11, 2006

Despite the grim picture the mainstream media continue to paint about just about everything -- the insurgent-ridden reconstruction effort in Iraq, the looming Iran threat, the failed Dubai ports deal, the twin deficits, the president’s sagging poll numbers, the Jack Abrahamoff scandal, and on and on -- there’s one thing they just can’t taint: This U.S. economy remains very healthy.

The United States is dangerously close to becoming a one party state. This year’s congressional elections could cement that party in power, which would probably allow it to move even further away from its traditional conservative principles.

Some clichés hang on because they’re true. Some others, however, hang on just because nobody has bothered blowing the cobwebs off them. A specific one I have in mind insists that hatred is a bad thing -- that it’s actually worse for a person to hate than to be hated. I beg to differ.

While George W. Bush is helping House Republicans to raise money Thursday for their 2006 campaign effort to keep their majority, they may that very day deliver a stinging rebuke to him on the Dubai ports issue.

Remember the satisfaction of receiving your first paycheck? I know I do. My first job was as a construction worker, and I’ll never forget depositing that hard-earned cash in my very own bank account. I was 15 years old, and I was becoming self-reliant.

State Department cookie-pushers, Davos dons, Wall Street Brahmins, think-tank worrywarts and the Olympians of the European Union are all fretting about the troubling rise of "economic nationalism" in the West. And, although it pains me to say so, I think the pinstripe crowd is right.

I can't tell you how many columns I've read lately acknowledging that Republicans are in deep disarray. But most of these, and many more, concede the Democrats' own problems prevent them from capitalizing on the GOP difficulties.

Georgia is the setting for several high-profile congressional races this year. Normally, strong challengers wait for an open seat before throwing a hat in the ring, or they wait for a presidential election year and try to ride the coattails of their party's nominee.

Apparently, it’s acceptable in the Cherry Creek School District for a geography teacher to use 20 minutes of class time for a left wing, fanatically whacko, socialist diatribe, providing he has made arrangements for Ann Coulter to tell the class what she thinks of communism. Isn’t public education great?

Law schools that challenged the Solomon Amendment, a federal law passed in 1994 that eliminates federal funding to universities that deny equal access to military recruiters, tried to hide behind noble motives.

Since 9-11, I've received numerous letters like this recent one: "What can be done to help educate people on the dangers that radical Islam poses to Western civilization? I don't think this ideological conflict will go away."

Nature's March quickening reminds, in the words of naturalist Hal Borland, that "no winter lasts forever, no spring skips its turn." And so, comments on a rising spring selection of items in the news. . . .

He has a beat-up Potomac River bridge named after him - one of the most treacherous spans a motorist can cross in this country - but no official presidential library overseen by the National Archives and Records Administration.

Americans move fast. We dream, plan, and build all in the blink of an eye. At times, our pursuit of progress consumes us; we get so caught up with making things bigger or better that we forget about making things right. Funny thing about progress though, it doesn’t mean much unless you’re going in the right direction.

Since the New York Times and Wall Street Journal broke the news about the admission of Taliban official Sayeed Rahmatullah Hashemi to a special student program at Yale, we’ve received numerous emails from outraged Yale Alumni. One email stood out from the rest—"I won’t give Yale one red cent this year, but maybe I will give them a red fingernail instead!"

The Supreme Court's recent 8 to 0 decision (Justice Alito not yet participating) shot down a claim that oil companies were colluding in setting prices. That claim was upheld by the far-left 9th Circuit Court of Appeals but neither liberals nor conservatives on the Supreme Court were buying it.

Teachers unions are mad at me. The New York State United Teachers demands I apologize for my "gutter level" journalism, "an irresponsible assault on public school students and teachers." This is because I hosted an ABC News TV special titled "Stupid in America," which pointed out:

You'd think Katie Couric would aspire to be an anchorwoman for all the American people now that CBS appears to be wooing her for the Throne of Rather. So why did she have to be so rough on Thomas Monaghan, the founder of Domino's Pizza, for being a Catholic?

Roman Catholic Archbishop Michael Sheehan of Santa Fe, N.M., secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, hurled a stinging criticism last week at the provision in the immigration reform bill passed by the U.S. House that calls for building 700 miles of double fencing -- together with "roads, lighting, cameras and sensors" -- along five stretches of the nearly 2,000-mile-long U.S.-Mexican border.

With all the recent talk about security vulnerabilities at the nation's ports, one subject goes virtually unmentioned. The men who actually control many of the nation's docks, especially on the Eastern seaboard, are in the hip pocket of the Mafia and have been for decades.

Thirty-six law schools and faculties challenged the constitutionality of the law on the ground that ``forced hosting" of military recruiters constitutes a ``crisis of conscience" over compelled speech.

There is furtive glee in the eyes of such as Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. The reason for it is that she calculates that the effrontery of South Dakota's legislature will bring on massive retaliation by the Supreme Court.

In the grand scheme of things, the recent resignation of Harvard's president, Lawrence Summers, was a small episode. But its implications are large and reach beyond Harvard -- and well beyond the academic world.

Officially, he is not yet running and won't make up his mind until after the fall elections, but in an interview in his Senate office (March 2), McCain sounds as if an announcement of his candidacy is merely a formality.

Colorado high-school sophomore Sean Allen couldn't convince his father that his geography teacher was as over-the-top as he contended. So Allen taped one of his teacher's rants on his MP3 player. Too bad for Jay Bennish: His 20-minute lecture ended up on talk radio.

Not just from Antonin Scalia, and not just from Clarence Thomas, rather, from a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court this week came the juicy rebuke to 36 law schools trying to bar military recruiters from their premises.

While many are still arguing about the UAE port deal and panicking about the “civil war” that’s supposedly breaking out in Iraq, the rest of you are hungering to find out what the mainstream media is missing. Here’s this week’s report.

The Associated Press reached a new level of incompetence, and the "news" industry they serve doesn’t seem to care. If you want political opinion, you’ll find it in Associated Press dispatches. If you want news, you might have to read conservative opinion columns.

Unbeknownst to most Americans, federal prosecutors opened their case recently in the terrorism trial of a young American who studied under two Taliban-tied imams in California and whose grandfather was Pakistan’s minister of religion in the 1980’s.

These were films that sympathized with terrorists, demonized capitalism, and turned uniquely American icons into subversive sexual punch lines. These were films that led to lowest box-office receipts in decades and the second-worst Oscar ratings since 1987. No matter how much velvet the Academy wraps its agenda in, its clear the public now knows the truth.

Mon, Mar 06, 2006

I’m often asked whether-or-not America is still producing future generations of the right sort of men. Not just good men – a man is either good or bad – but tough, clear-headed, un-emasculated, young male leaders capable of standing up to future threats against this nation.

To those who are looking for a standard for U.S. decision-making, here it is: the ports are U.S. property and we're fully entitled to make any decision we believe is in the best interest of the United States of America. No law requires us to treat all countries the same.

The issue is historical now, but still worth exploring. Why, for two distinct groups of Americans, has it become a matter of conviction held with religious intensity that there cannot have been any relationship between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq?

The Supreme Court's unanimous 8-0 decision this week rejecting claims by the National Organization for Women (Now) that demonstrations at abortion clinics are extortion and therefore punishable under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act was an important vote for freedom and free speech.

One of the weirder sideshows to open alongside a main event -- the proposed operational transfer of six major American ports to a firm owned by the United Arab Emirates -- is the growing chorus of road-company Zolas, "J'accusing" everybody opposed to the sale of "xenophobia," "isolationist mass hysteria," "bigotry," "nativism," "panic," and "prejudice" against innocent Araby.

It was an absolute thrill to see American businessmen and women, some Jewish and some Christian, become totally immersed in Israel's culture, its economy and, of course, its political and foreign policy.

From my standpoint, taking into account all the editorializing, talk-show tempests, and political sound bites of recent weeks, I have yet to see any real evidence that the deal will compromise U.S. national security.

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